Christian  Re-Union 


A  SERMON 

BY 

Rev.  L.  Mason  Clarke,  D.D., 

MINISTER,  FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

BROOKLYN  -NEW  YORK 


ON    THE    OCCASION    OF    THE    VISIT    OF 

Canon  H.  Hensley  Henson,  D.D., 

OF  WESTMINSTER,  RECTOR  OF  ST.  MARGARET'S,  LONDON 
TO    BROOKLYN 

AND   HIS  APPEARANCE  IN   THE   PULPIT  OF  THE 

FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 


^ 


MAY  THE  NINTH, 

MCMIX 


sALr 
Christian  Re-Union'9o'^ 

A  SERiMON 

BY 

Rev.  L.  Mason  Clarke,  D.D., 

MINISTER,  FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

BROOKLYN  -•  NEW  YORK 


ON    THE     OCCASION     OF    THE    VISIT    OF 

Canon  H.  Hensley  Henson,  D.D., 

OF  WESTMINSTER,   RECTOR   OF  ST.   MARGARET'S,   LONDON 
TO    BROOKLYN 

AND   HIS  APPEARANCE  IN   THE   PULPIT  OF  THE 

FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 


^ 


MAY  THE  NINTH, 
MCMIX 


CHRISTIAN   RE-UNION 

"And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three,  and  the  great- 
est  of  these  is  love." — I  Corinthians  xiii,  1 3. 

Two  very  different  considerations  have  seemed  to 
make  this  particular  scripture  the  pre-eminently- 
appropriate  text  for  us  this  morning. 


In  the  first  place,  we  are  to  welcome  to  this  pulpit 
this  afternoon,  a  distinguished  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England,  who,  to  a  peculiar  degree,  is  the 
apostle  of  "godly  union  and  concord," — a  prophet- 
preacher  who  from  time  to  time  stands  in  the  vener- 
able Abbey  of  Westminster,  clothed  with  the  grace 
of  a  noble  fraternalism,  pleading  with  the  great 
national  Church  of  which  he  is  a  conspicuous  leader, 
for  a  recognition  of  true  Christian  discipleship  and 
for  an  honorable  fellowship  with  all  communions  on 
a  basis  of  Christian  character.  Christian  life  and 
Christian  efficiency,  apart  from  any  long  cherished 
and  stoutly  maintained  traditions  of  regularity  of 
organization. 

As  the  rector  of  St.  Margaret's  also,  Canon 
Henson  is  the  minister  of  that  Church  which  for 
three  centuries  has  been  the  sanctuary  within  whose 
walls  the  oldest  free  legislative  assembly  in  the  world 
has  been  accustomed  to  gather,  sometimes  officially, 
sometimes  unofficially,  to  listen  to  the  preaching  of 

3 


2117597 


the  Gospel.  St.  Margaret's  is  the  Speaker's  Church, 
as  it  is  often  called,  in  which  the  members  of  Parlia- 
ment have  their  traditional  rights  and  privileges.  It 
was  there  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  between 
England  and  Scotland  was  accepted  and  subscribed 
by  the  Parliament  and  the  Westminster  Assembly  on 
the  memorable  25th  of  September,  1643.  While  we 
are  not  concerned  either  to  approve  or  to  disapprove 
all  the  specific  courses  which  the  signers  of  that 
Covenant  afterwards  pursued,  yet  to-day  we  are  the 
direct  heirs  of  that  liberty  which  by  the  efforts  and 
sacrifices  of  these  men,  notwithstanding  their  failures 
and  mistakes,  they  secured,  defended  and  handed  on 
to  their  children  and  to  their  children's  children. 
Fittingly  the  present  rector  of  that  historic  Church 
embodies  the  spirit  of  union.  Fittingly  too,  most 
fittingly,  as  Canon  of  Westminster,  that  shrine  of 
England's  greatness,  where  the  catholicity  of  intel- 
lect, of  heroism  and  of  genius  is  commemorated  in 
the  very  heart  of  Empire,  Dr.  Henson  also  represents 
the  large  and  splendid  catholicity  of  religion.  He 
thus  perhaps  to  a  peculiar  degree  represents  the 
liberty  and  the  unity  of  the  Christian  faith.  And 
then  as  a  leader  of  the  new  social  movement  in  the 
Anglican  Church,  he  seeks  to  bring  this  large  and 
generous  spirit  of  religion  to  the  massed  problems  of 
the  toiling  souls  who  are  without  the  visible  Church 
of  our  common  Lord  and  Saviour. 

II 

But    I    said  that    there  is   another   consideration 
which  also  leads  us  naturally  to  our  text  to-day.     If 

4 


it  be  a  consideration  that  is  suggested  rather  by  the 
contrast  it  affords  more  than  by  any  similarities  it 
presents,  it  is  none  the  less  illumining  and  instructive. 

Everywhere  around  us  there  is  being  celebrated  the 
four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  John 
Calvin,  a  man  whose  influence  has  been  one  of  the 
most  powerful  factors  in  developing  the  institutions 
and  ideals  of  England,  Scotland  and  America. 

There  are  few  names  in  modern  history  which 
arouse,  on  the  one  hand,  such  ardent  admiration,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  such  intense  detestation  as  the 
name  of  Calvin.  Few  men  have  been  more  revered 
and  few  more  hated.  Yet,  in  order  either  to  admire 
or  to  hate  a  man  intelligently,  it  is  eminently  proper 
that  we  should  try  to  appreciate  him. 

At  least  there  seems  to  be  little  doubt  that  in  no 
small  measure  we  owe  our  modern  liberties  to  the 
work  and  influence  of  this  mighty  man.  Certain  it  is, 
at  any  rate,  that  for  two  hundred  years  or  more,  if 
anywhere  in  Europe  there  was  a  community  which 
was  abhorred  by  tyranny,  if  in  England,  Scotland, 
France  or  Holland  there  were  people  who  were  the 
special  objects  of  despotic  wrath  and  indignation, 
those  people  were  Calvinists.  We  are  familiar  too 
with  various  eulogies  which  have  been  pronounced 
upon  this  leader  of  that  second  and  darker  period  of 
the  Reformation  era, — pronounced  by  men  who  could 
have  had  no  sympathy  with  the  theology  with  which 
the  name  of  Calvin  has  been  properly  identified.  Mr. 
Bancroft,  the  historian  of  America,  himself  a  Unita- 
rian, calls  him  "  the  guide  of  Republics."  Mr.  Froude 
who  held  no  brief  for  any  particular  brand  of  theology, 


praises  him  as  the  inspirer  of  modern  freedom. 
Motley,  Hume  and  Buckle  are  all  in  much  the  same 
strain.  Besides,  as  the  great  Church  of  which  we 
here  form  a  humble  part,  together  with  others  closely 
allied  to  us  by  ties  of  historical  development,  traces 
its  form  of  doctrine  and  worship  to  the  personality 
and  teachings  of  this  man,  it  can  hardly  be  considered 
out  of  place  if  in  this  fourth  centennial  year  of 
Calvin's  birth  we  recall  certain  truths  which,  it  seems 
to  me,  need  to  be  remembered. 

For  example,  if  our  Communion  has  ever  stood 
for  anything  in  history  on  behalf  of  education, — and 
I  am  confident  you  will  agree  that  it  has, — it  owes 
this  fact  in  large  measure  to  the  impulse  of  this  pre- 
eminent intellect  of  the  Reformation  Age.  Or,  if  as 
Americans  we  are  interested  in  the  origins  of  our  own 
nation  we  shall  need  to  take  account  of  the  influence 
of  Calvin  in  the  formation  of  this  government. 

Ill 

But  at  the  outset  we  are  confronted  with  this  inter- 
esting fact,  that  all  of  this  man's  influence  upon 
political  institutions  and  civil  liberty,  upon  demo- 
cratic ideals  and  republican  government,  is,  as  one  of 
his  biographers  tells  us,  a  by-product,  not  an  intended 
and  clearly  designed  result  of  Calvin's  teaching.  He 
himself  was  no  democrat.  "  I  am  far  from  denying  " 
he  says,  "  that  the  form  of  government  which  greatly 
surpasses  the  others  is  aristocracy."  It  is  however 
worth  observing  that  when  he  taught  and  lodged  in 
the  heart  of  his  teaching  that  "  subjection  to  rulers  is 
always  to  be  a  subjection    in    the   Lord^''  he  unde- 


signedly  sowed  the  seed  of  freedom  of  conscience  and 
planted  unknowingly  the  tree  of  republican  liberty  in 
the  soil  of  the  modern  world.  It  is  therefore  an 
interesting  fact  that  the  most  abiding  result  of  this 
forceful  and  masterful  character  is  a  result  unintended 
and  unforeseen.  The  thing  he  intended  is  passing 
away.  He  thus  affords  a  significant  illustration  of  a 
man  who  builds  better  than  he  knows.  He  is  an 
instance  of  one  whose  first  and  controlling  purpose 
has  been  broken  up  into  a  multitude  of  unlooked-for 
influences  which  still  bless  the  world,  though  the  chief 
purpose  of  the  man  has  had  its  day  and  ceased  to  be. 
The  theology  of  Calvin  in  its  original  form,  as  a 
system  of  belief  has  practically  passed  away  and  no 
longer  obtains  any  general  acceptance  as  a  consider- 
able force  and  power  among  us,  while  the  influence 
of  Calvin  is  one  of  the  most  wholesome  and  invigor- 
ating factors  of  our  modern  life. 

IV 

If  it  is  popularly  imagined  that  the  Presbyterian 
Church  is  Calvinistic  in  its  doctrine  to-day,  such  an 
opinion  can  be  entertained  only  by  those  who  do  not 
appreciate  the  difference  between  original  Calvinism 
and  the  present  faith  of  the  Church.  Surely  it  is 
only  in  a  very  modified  sense  that  the  belief  of  this 
denomination  which  perhaps  especially  counts  Calvin 
as  a  spiritual  and  intellectual  ancestor,  can  be  called 
Calvinistic  now.  The  revised  summary  of  doctrine 
accepted  and  adopted  by  our  Church  a  few  years  ago 
is  not  Calvinism  but  instead,  it  contains  elements 
which  Calvin  would  not  have  endorsed  and  it  omits 


elements    which    he    insisted    were    essential    to    his 
"  System." 

His  teaching  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  has  been 
gradually  modified  into  the  doctrine  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God,  which  is  a  very  different  thing.  This 
is  now  the  organizing  principle  of  our  present  the- 
ology. That  infinite  Will  which  in  Calvinism  fore- 
ordained evil  as  well  as  good,  because  it  pleased  and 
had  the  power  so  to  do,  has  become  quite  another 
conception  in  modern  faith,  where  it  now  is  seen  to  be 
good  will^  the  name  of  which  is  not  Power  but  Love. 
Every  one  of  the  distinctive  teachings  of  Calvin  has 
been  so  worn  away  under  the  influence  of  what  Paul 
calls  in  our  text  the  "greatest,"  that  the  change  has 
been  more  like  a  revolution  than  an  evolution.  His 
view  of  human  nature  as  totally  depraved  is  nowhere 
taught  and  cherished  as  an  article  of  modern  Christian 
Faith,  or  if  it  does  still  lurk  in  any  quarter  as  a 
theoretical  belief,  it  is  not  the  faith  that  governs 
men's  actions  and  procedure  in  the  proclamation  of 
the  Gospel.  Instead,  the  message  is  preached  as  to 
men  who,  though  they  may  be  wandering  children 
of  their  heavenly  Father,  are  yet  children  who  may 
turn  again  to  their  Father's  house.  No  paralysis  of 
predestination  withers  the  present  appeal  to  the  human 
will.  Still  further,  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  hard 
decrees  of  Calvin's  God  has  passed  away  by  reason  of 
the  truer  conception  of  the  revelation  of  the  real  God 
in  the  person  of  the  real  Jesus.  So  it  is  that  each  of 
the  "five  points"  of  Calvinism  has  been  changed  or 
left  behind.  Every  feature  of  his  theology  which  was 
essential  to  his  rigorous  "  svstem  "  has  been  so  modi- 


fied  until  the  faith  of  our  Church  to-day,  in  common 
with  the  faith  of  Christendom,  bears  slight  resem- 
blance to  the  original  Calvinism  of  four  centuries 
ago.  The  witty  paraphrase  of  a  familiar  stanza  is 
not  untrue  to  fact,  — 

"We  are  not  divided, 
All  one  body  we, 
Wesley's  God  is  sovereign. 
And  Calvin's  man  is  free." 

V 

Now  the  explanation  of  such  significant  changes 
is  not  difficult. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  in  four  hundred 
years  the  knowledge  of  Christian  truth  had  not 
increased  under  the  promised  tutelage  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  if  the  theology  of  men  had  not  advanced  even 
as  the  world  has  gone  forward  in  all  other  depart- 
ments of  thought  and  life.  It  would  be  a  sad  result 
of  four  more  centuries  of  Christian  experience  if  the 
Church  thought  and  felt  and  believed  to-day  as  it  did 
in  Calvin's  time.  With  the  enlarged  view  of  the 
world,  with  the  new  enthusiasm  for  humanity,  with 
the  altered  conception  of  history,  of  nature,  and  of 
the  human  soul,  it  would  be  terribly  strange  if  we 
had  no  better  thoughts  of  God.  And  this  entire 
result  which  is  so  evident  to  us  the  instant  we  state 
to  ourselves  what  Calvinism  really  was,  is  due  to  the 
gradually  increasing  pressure  upon  the  conscience 
and  heart  of  men  of  the  comparatively  new-found 
truth  that  God  is  Love.  What  one  of  our  Presby- 
terian theologians  has  written  is  true,  namely,  that 
the  God  of  Calvinism  is  Power.     The  God  of  modern 

9 


Christian  Faith  is  Love.     Calvin  never  had  the  con- 
ception of  a  Jesus-like  God. 

It  is  usually  thought  also  that  Calvinism  is  abso- 
lutely logical  as  a  system.  It  certainly  is  emphati- 
cally logical  in  parts.  However  it  is  not  all  logic  and 
it  dispenses  with  logic  at  times.  But  even  were  it 
tight-riveted  in  every  place,  it  would  be  none  the  less 
impossible  as  a  statement  of  religious  faith  to-day. 
Love  can  never  be  interpreted  by  logical  processes 
alone.  Power  may  be  stated  in  the  terms  of  a  syl- 
logism but  love  never  can  be  thus  stated.  President 
Patton  once  said  in  this  very  city  that  he  would  not 
say  that  a  person  can  not  be  a  Christian  without 
being  a  Calvinist,  but  he  would  say  that  a  person  can 
not  be  a  logical  Christian  without  being  a  Calvinist. 
But  the  very  point  is  that  there  is  a  great  deal  more 
in  human  nature  than  intellect  and  logic.  Love  is 
often  illogical  and  it  is  always,  I  think,  unlogical. 
That  is,  it  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  grooves  of 
reasoning.  You  can  not  express  or  explain  your 
emotions  by  a  major  and  minor  premiss  and  con- 
clusion. The  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  is  the 
despair  of  logic,  but  it  is  also  the  joy  and  glory 
of   love  ! 

And  thus,  like  a  stately  iceberg  that  comes  from 
an  Arctic  glacier,  glistening  and  solid-like  in  its  com- 
pacted structure,  which,  when  it  meets  the  warmer 
seas  begins  to  fade  and  melt  and  finally  dissolves 
away,  yet  in  its  passing  contributes  elements  of  vigor 
to  the  ocean  in  which  it  disappears  and  to  the  air 
above,  so  I  think  of  the  theology  of  Calvin,  symmet- 
rical in  its  outlines,  tremendous  in  its  original  energy, 

10 


a  mighty  moving  power  in  the  older  days  of  tyranny, 
yet  as  it  comes  to  the  latitudes  of  a  humaner  age  it 
melts  and  fades,  passing  as  a  "  system  "  away  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  ocean  of  divine  love,  but  also 
in  passing,  it  contributes  vigor  and  health  to  a  multi- 
tude of  intellectual  and  spiritual  interests  that  still 
abide.  Let  no  one  think  therefore  that  because  as  a 
system  of  theology  Calvinism  passes  away  it  has  not 
done  great  work  for  God  and  for  man.  The  tonic  of 
its  power  is  in  the  thought  and  life  of  men  yet.  It 
has  gripped  the  intellect  of  as  sturdy  a  race  of 
thinkers  as  the  later  world  has  known.  It  has  been 
the  persistent  foe  of  ignorance  and  the  constant  friend 
of  learning.  It  has  also  laid  its  emphasis  upon  in- 
dividual character,  and  it  was  only  an  abuse  of  its 
message  which  made  it  the  instrument  of  an  immoral 
fatalism.  Moreover,  it  has  stamped  upon  men's  minds 
afresh  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  divine  plan  for 
every  life  and  thus  it  has  given  a  supreme  value  to 
the  lowliest  soul.  These  are  but  few  of  the  results 
of  the  Calvinistic  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  which 
have  gone  as  lasting  elements  into  the  faith  of 
Christendom  to-day.  It  is  well  indeed  to  realize 
these  things  and  to  pay  our  modest  tribute  to  so 
significant  an  influence.  I  can  but  think  also  that 
it  is  worth  while  to  see  our  present  theological  align- 
ment in  reference  to  such  an  influence,  to  know  what 
we  are  in  Christian  thought  and  where  we  are,  and  to 
know  why  we  are  what  and  where  we  are. 

VI* 

But  there  is  more  to  be  said  than  this.     In  this 
beautiful    poem    on    Christian    love,    this    thirteenth 

11 


chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  St,  Paul  reveals  him- 
self as  the  great  theologian.  The  old  Latin  phrase, 
whoever  said  it  first,  '''' pectus  facit  theologuni  " — "  the 
heart  makes  the  theologian  "  certainly  fits  the  apostle 
who  wrote  this  immortal  song.  Yet,  no  one  ever  laid 
more  stress  upon  "  faith  "  than  did  Paul,  and  he  had 
a  clear  idea  of  what  he  meant  by  "  the  faith."  His 
was  the  only  trained  and  disciplined  intellect  among 
the  earliest  followers  of  the  Great  Teacher.  "  Be  not 
children  in  understanding "  he  writes  to  these  same 
Corinthians,  "  in  understanding  be  men."  Also  "  I 
will  pray  and  sing  in  the  spirit,  but  I  will  pray  and 
sing  with  the  understanding  also."  But  how  he 
penetrates,  as  with  the  eye  of  an  experienced  prophet, 
the  real  secret  and  genius  of  religion.  "  If  I  have  all 
faith — but  have  not  love,  I  am  nothing."  "  If  I  have 
all  knowledge — and  have  not  love,  I  am  nothing." 
"  Knowledge  passeth  away."  "  Prophecies  shall  be 
done  away."  "  Love  never  faileth."  And  what  is 
the  result  ?  Why,  the  result  is  that  the  nearer  we 
come  to  this  which  is  the  real  heart  of  all  theology 
we  come  closer  to  the  two  great  principles  of  all  Truth, 
Liberty  and  Unity.  There  can  never  be  any  realized 
unity  without  freedom,  and  freedom  can  not  come  to 
its  fullness  without  realizing  unity.  The  very  thing 
which  theology  has  so  often  been  afraid  of  and  which 
it  has  so  frequently  tried  to  stifle  is  thus  the  very  con- 
dition of  the  unity  which  by  other  means  it  has 
endeavored  vainly  to  secure.  The  man  who  seeks  to 
enforce  his  belief  upon  another  man,  by  threats  or 
penalties  of  whatever  kind,  is  insulting  the  truth  he 
tries  to  advance.     All  that  truth  asks  of  us  is  that  we 

12 


set  it  free.  Only  when  it  is  free  will  its  unity 
appear. 

The  same  holds  good  of  the  Church.  To-day  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  divided  into  a  multitude  of 
sections.  Yet  we  are  all  coming  closer  together 
under  the  influence  of  this  "greatest  thing  in  the 
world."  The  Church  seems  to  be  crying  out  to  its 
leaders  and  saying  "  Make  me  free.  If  these  petty 
bonds  which  enslave  me  and  keep  my  life  imprisoned 
were  but  severed,  then  because  free  I  should  realize 
my  oneness."  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  the  things 
which  divide  the  Church  are  the  things  which  en- 
slave the  Church  ?  Is  it  not  also  the  fact  that  the 
things  which  unite  us  all,  underneath  our  dividing 
lines,  are  the  great  elemental  unities  in  which  alone 
our  liberties  as  Christians  are  lodged  ?  We  therefore 
claim  our  right  to  be  ourselves  and  yet  to  hold  visible 
fellowship  with  all  who  serve  and  love  the  Imperial 
Christ,— the  LORD,  to  whom  both  St.  Paul  and 
the  apocalyptic  writer  refer  in  that  carefully  chosen 
word  which  in  the  Greek  always  meant  the  Emperor. 
(First  Corinthians  II :  20  and  The  Revelation  1:10.) 

We  will  then  hold  no  truth  however  "  historic  " 
it  may  be  in  such  a  way  as  to  disfellowship  any  one 
who  loves  the  Lord  of  all  truth.  We  will  refuse  to 
be  so  exalted  by  our  particular  doctrine  or  Church  or- 
ganization as  to  exclude  from  our  fraternalism  any 
one  who  loves  the  Lover  of  us  all.  Nothing  but  this 
"  greatest "  can  ever  melt  away  the  "  least "  things 
which  men  have  made  into  reasons  for  dividing  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church.  The  unerring  mark  of  such 
a  Church  is  not  any  figment  of  fancied  regularity  of 

13 


organization,  not  any  "  system  "  of  theology  which  it 
defends  against  all  comers,  not  any  external  use  or 
sign,  but  simply  Christian  character,  Christian  service, 
Christian  love.  Not  the  unity  of  uniformity  as  the 
older  days  attempted  with  such  baleful  results  and  as 
it  lingers  still  here  and  there  among  men,  but  the 
unity  of  variety, — as  St.  Paul  himself  might  have  ex- 
pressed it,  the  unity  of  a  spiritual  universe,  where 
each  part  has  a  glory  of  its  own  as  the  several  stars 
differ  in  their  glory,  but  where  all  together  they  utter 
forth  the  manifold  grace  in  harmonious  fellowship  ! 

VII 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  not  one  of  the  divisions 
in  the  Church  of  Christ  had  its  origin  in  a  plain  and 
evident  word  of  Jesus  or  teaching  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. You  can  not  find  the  "  historic  episcopate  " 
until  the  second  century.  You  read  nothing  of  the 
Papacy  in  the  Scriptures,  and  if  St.  Peter  wrote  the 
first  epistle  that  now  bears  his  name,  he  presents  in 
the  fifth  chapter  a  strange  protest  against  it.  You 
can  not  find  Presbyterianism,  either  as  an  order  of 
polity  or  as  a  Calvinistic  confession,  in  any  exclusive 
possession  of  divine  right,  in  this  sacred  record.  Not 
one  of  the  different  forms  of  Church  organization 
extant  has  any  verifiable  claim  to  supremacy  on  the 
authority  of  the  New  Testament.  But  what  does 
have  such  authority?  Why,  Christian  love  and 
fellowship  are  the  notes  of  the  unquestioned  message 
of  Jesus  and  His  apostles.  The  simple  things  (and 
yet  how  hard  they  are  ?),  the  great,  splendid  elemen- 
tals  of  character,  these  are  the  constant  factors  of  the 

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Gospel.  This  is  what  men  are  feeling  increasingly 
to-day.  This  is  bringing  the  Church  closer  together, 
part  with  part,  portion  with  portion,  and  nothing, 
whether  ancient  prejudice  or  new  born  bigotrv^  or 
mistaken  convictions,  nothing,  whether  decrees  of 
Councils  or  resolutions  of  Assemblies,  can  forever 
prevent  the  federation  in  a  true  and  "  godly  union 
and  concord,"  of  the  several  communions  that  worship 
the  Father  of  us  all.  We  are  learning  to  love  each 
other  more  and  to  respect  the  opinions  of  those  who 
in  unessentials  are  removed  from  us.  We  are  no 
longer  tr^-ing  the  impossible  task  of  creating  a 
"  system  "  of  theology  which  is  to  hold  all  the  truth 
of  salvation  in  its  rigid  mould.  We  have  given  up 
the  unholy  business  of  pronouncing  anathemas  upon 
men  of  character  whose  faith  is  not  ours  and  to  whom 
our  faith  is  meaningless.  We  are  beginning  to  dis- 
cover how  great  love  is  !  We  are  also  learning  how 
various  is  the  truth  of  God  and  how  big  and  vast  is 
the  human  soul ! 

I  take  this  opportunity  of  quoting  from  a  deliver- 
ance made  by  the  eminent  Canon  who  will  preach 
from  this  historic  pulpit  this  afternoon.  He  stood 
before  the  University  of  Cambridge  and  said,  "the 
time  has  come  for  Churchmen  to  remove  the  barriers 
for  which  they  can  no  longer  plead  political  utility 
and  which  have  behind  them  no  sanctions  in  the  best 
conscience  and  worthiest  reason  of  our  times." 

Everywhere  Christians  are  already  united  in  the 
fellowship  of  sacred  science.  Scholarship  knows  no 
such  dividing  lines  as  men  have  drawn  in  the  name 
of   religion.     Devotion    brings    together    men  of   all 

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sorts  of  creeds  and  we  all  pi  ay  and  praise  in  the 
language  of  Romanist,  Anglican,  I^utheran,  Unitarian 
and  Calvinist,  Methodist  and  Quaker.  Already 
when  you  reach  to  the  real  heart  of  the  matter 
we  are  one  in  the  victory  of  liberty,  the  victory  of 
Christian  love  !  The  two  must  go  together  towards 
the  realization  of  the  fuller  visible  unity  of  the 
Church.  Liberty  precedes  the  unity  in  the  evolution 
of  the  Kingdom.  Unity  is  the  consummate  expression 
of  Christian  liberty. 

When  in  days  to  come  the  Church  of  Christ  shall 
achieve  by  the  abundance  of  her  love  the  union  to 
which  she  is  called,  then  she  will  be  able  to  convince 
the  world,  as  the  Saviour  promised,  but  as  now  she 
can  not  do,  that  "  Thou  hast  sent  Me."  Then  she 
will  fling  her  new  love  over  the  now  divided  ranks  of 
human  struggle  and  toil  and  suffering  and  will  draw 
together  by  no  other  force  than  love,  the  separated 
and  alienated  hosts  that  now  believed  or  deny  outside 
her  sacred  fellowship.  The  appeal  of  love  is  the  only 
universal  appeal  and  every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of 
the  universal  God.     Amen  and  Ameu  ! 


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